Political perspectives: Nástio Mosquito and Theaster Gates at Fondazione Prada

The shining light flowing into the Fondazione Prada has been hindered for a slight moment. Over the summer months, the windows have been plastered in pop coloured cartoons, but with a subject matter that couldn’t be farther away from playful animation.
This enveloping piece is part of ‘TTT – Template Temples of Tenacity’, a three piece exhibition by multimedia artist Nástio Mosquito. These run in unison with Theaster Gates’ latest show ‘True Value’ in the same location – both interact with day-to-day rituals and trial them to new levels, marking a strong political moment at the Foundation.
But these two shows definitely don’t get tangled. While one openly invites a pious sentiment through choir performances and stained glass windows, the other focuses on a political message via the use of everyday products.
Mosquito’s piece in the windows is strongly titled WEorNOT. Inviting people at the entrance, this is a new site specific piece, illustrated by Ada Diez and produced by Mosquito’s collective Nastivicious, which he devised in collaboration with Vic Pereiró back in 2008. Transforming the Fondazione’s atrium into a ‘contemporary temple’, the vivid stained glass etchings evoke a psychedelic style, but here the figures have guns in hand, stand on philosophical and religious readings, or are in battle. ‘The artist invites us to his most critical endeavour yet,’ curator Elvira Dyangani Ose says. ‘Entering a space and time where judgment and evaluation are suspended, where things do not necessarily need to make sense, where – if one is up to the challenge— we are encouraged to lose ourselves in our own innate sensitiveness.’
Gates’ message is just as powerful, but with a more subtle delivery. Recreating a colour-coordinated hardware store environment on the first floor, the rough and raw pieces hone in on everyday survival. Titled True Value like the show itself, the layout delves into the products as symbols of power and struggle, via the people who encounter them. 'It alludes to the disappearance of local activities and pays tribute to the ready-made and everyday sphere,’ Gates divulges. ‘[It] denounces the failures of capitalism in valuing the individual, or tells the difficulties of a black neighbourhood that is struggling to find a new centre.’
The notion of 'you have to be there' is definitely emphasised with the duo of exhibitions as they both go deeper into their critique with separate performances and events. Mosquito has collaborated with musician Dijf Sanders, artist Chilala Moco and The Golden Guys choir for a performance I Make Love To You. You Make Love To Me. Let Love Have Sex With The Both Of Us and has plans for a cinematic audiovisual piece, Synchronicity Is My Bitch: The Cinematic Experience, in September. Meanwhile, 'True Value' will host a series of public meetings of debates and readings.
The first of Mosquito's three pieces is WEorNOT – an intervention on the windows of the ground floor of the space, creating a ‘contemporary temple'. Photography: OKNOstudio
The vivid stained glass etchings evoke a psychedelic style, but here the figures have guns in hand, stand on philosophical and religious readings, or are in battle. Courtesy Nastivicious
‘The artist invites us to his most critical endeavour yet,’ curator Elvira Dyangani Ose says. Pictured: WEorNOT (Nastivicious’ Temple #01), by Nastivicious (illustrations in collaboration with Ada Diez), 2016. Photography: OKNOstudio
WEorNOT will be accompanied by a cinematic audiovisual piece in September titled Synchronicity Is My Bitch: The Cinematic Experience. Photography: OKNOstudio
Mosquito has also collaborated with musician Dijf Sanders, artist Chilala Moco and The Golden Guys choir for a performance of I Make Love To You. You Make Love To Me. Let Love Have Sex With The Both Of Us, 2016. Illustrations: Robin Velghe. Courtesy Nástio Mosquito
Gates’ message is just as powerful, but with a more subtle delivery. Recreating a colour-coordinated hardware store environment on the first floor, the rough and raw pieces hone in on everyday survival. Pictured: True Value, by Theaster Gates, 2016. Photography: Delfino Sisto Legnani Studio
The set up delves into the products as symbols of power and struggle, via the people who encounter them
'It alludes to the disappearance of local activities and pays tribute to the ready-made and everyday sphere,’ Gates divulges
INFORMATION
'Nástio Mosquito: TTT – Template Temples of Tenacity' and 'Theaster Gates: True Value' are on view until 25 September. For more information, visit the Fondazione Prada website
ADDRESS
Fondazione Prada
Largo Isarco
2, 20139 Milano, Italy
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Sujata Burman is a writer and editor based in London, specialising in design and culture. She was Digital Design Editor at Wallpaper* before moving to her current role of Head of Content at London Design Festival and London Design Biennale where she is expanding the content offering of the showcases. Over the past decade, Sujata has written for global design and culture publications, and has been a speaker, moderator and judge for institutions and brands including RIBA, D&AD, Design Museum and Design Miami/. In 2019, she co-authored her first book, An Opinionated Guide to London Architecture, published by Hoxton Mini Press, which was driven by her aim to make the fields of design and architecture accessible to wider audiences.
-
At the Regent Street Sensorium, architectural jelly sculptures are designed to ignite the senses
Delve into the history of London’s Regent Street through a jellyscape, a fragrance cloud and more – plus, for the event’s final week, two new immersive workshops (ends 27 April)
By Tianna Williams
-
With scenography by OMA, Dior’s ‘Designer of Dreams’ exhibition in Seoul is ‘a piece of theatre’
OMA partner Shohei Shigematsu catches up with Wallpaper* about the dramatic show design for the latest iteration of ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’, which opened in Seoul this weekend
By Daven Wu
-
Mercedes-Benz previews its next-gen people mover with an ultra-luxury EV concept
The Mercedes-Benz Vision V Concept is an art deco picture palace on wheels, designed to immerse passengers in parallel worlds as they travel
By Jonathan Bell
-
25 artists reimagine the teapot at Milan Design Week 2025
Come to Loewe’s cross-cultural tea party: pots of fun in Milan as artists, designers and architects celebrate the universal comfort of tea
By Hannah Silver
-
Inside the unexpected collaboration between Marni’s Francesco Risso and artists Slawn and Soldier
New exhibition ‘The Pink Sun’ will take place at Francesco Risso’s palazzo in Milan in collaboration with Saatchi Yates, opening after the Marni show today, 26 February
By Hannah Silver
-
The creative mind at work: a century of storyboarding at Fondazione Prada
Fondazione Prada’s 'Osservatorio, A Kind of Language: Storyboards and Other Renderings' features some of the most celebrated names in cinema working from the late 1920s up to 2024
By Mary Cleary
-
What makes fashion and art such good bedfellows?
There has always been a symbiosis between fashion and the art world. Here, we look at what makes the relationship such a successful one
By Amah-Rose Abrams
-
Remembering Oliviero Toscani, fashion photographer and author of provocative Benetton campaigns
Best known for the controversial adverts he shot for the Italian fashion brand, former art director Oliviero Toscani has died, aged 82
By Anna Solomon
-
Distracting decadence: how Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy shaped Italian TV
Stefano De Luigi's monograph Televisiva examines how Berlusconi’s empire reshaped Italian TV, and subsequently infiltrated the premiership
By Zoe Whitfield
-
Louis Fratino leans into queer cultural history in Italy
Louis Fratino’s 'Satura', on view at the Centro Pecci in Italy, engages with queer history, Italian landscapes and the body itself
By Sam Moore
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this week
A snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
By Bill Prince